


love is a place (where are you from?)

by aspiringpencilcase



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures
Genre: Crushes, F/F, kind of a roadtrip excep they drive in like five percent of this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 20:12:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3823249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspiringpencilcase/pseuds/aspiringpencilcase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the eight of them go to a roadtrip. blue is a lot to deal with, as usual, and crystal finds the best way to handle it - she gets a crush on her. a++ job crystal</p><p>(02/11/15 - fixed the formatting n a few (a lot of) typos)</p>
            </blockquote>





	love is a place (where are you from?)

Crystal is still unable to believe that all eight of them managed to squash into this tiny minivan. It's of professor Oak, Red states, all toothy grin and disarming confidence, and Crystal watches the corners of Green's ears dust pink.

Gold is babbling about something to Blue who listens and interrupts, all joy and mischievous glint in her eyes, and then listens again. Silver is watching them from the corner of his eye, positioning his head carefully in order not to be seen. His expression is soft; he’s smiling with this almost invisible smile of his. He’s always like that when watching Gold, Crystal thinks. With Blue it’s more of admiration and belonging, less subtle, more conscious.

Crystal herself is squeezed between Emerald, who’s clearly had too much of Yellow’s influence and is currently taking a nap, and Blue’s handbag. It’s of gentle violet colour and with a pattern of tiny daisy flowers. She finds herself thinking that it’s plenty cute, though not really her style.

Blue, being the spy master she is, notices her interest immediately and turns to her with a grin.

“Pretty, right? And I paid approximately zero money to acquire it. Isn’t that just wonderful?“

Crystal frowns at her; Blue pays it no mind. Typical.

“So you stole it.“

Green gives a snort from his passenger seat next to Yellow, who’s driving. Yellow is surprisingly the best driver of them all, though sometimes they pay too much attention to animals on the side walk. Gold was once told (and he deemed it absolutely necessary to retell to everyone in a mile radius) that once they pulled over in order to help some bird.

"Thanks for your input, Green“, Blue flashes a smile in his direction, to which he responds with a raised eyebrow, "but in fact I didn’t.“

Crystal hums, sounding more of ‘like hell I’m buying this’ then of ‘I accept every bit of your (completely unlikely) story, dear Pokemon trainer Blue’.

"I was just passing a stand where they was displayed and the owner was so enchanted with my beauty that he gave me one for free. You know, this just keeps happening.“

"Blue, you gave him the best PR-company he’s ever had“, Red laughs from his seat, amused and honest, and Crystal watches Green’s cheeks match the corners of his ears in colour.

"Details“, Blue says as she fixes her hair.

"But this is still very trickster-like! If it was a discount or something, it’d be another thing entirely. This isn’t fair at all!“

There’s a shade of something close to wonder in Blue’s eyes this time, even when she laughs. Crystal thinks that the ‘enchanted with her beauty’ version wasn’t that far from truth and immediately scolds herself for the thought. Honestly.

"Oh, come on“, Blue says, twirling a strand of her hair, "I can show you what really isn’t fair here.“

The way she emphasizes the word ‘really’, slow yet playful, lefts Crystal’s cheeks burning and her whole body dipped in boiling lava of her fast heartbeat. Judging by Blue’s smirk, this is exactly the effect she hoped for. Well, shit.

Crystal makes an hmph sound and turns to the window to watch the scenery. This can be dealt with an orderly fashion, she tells herself till they arrive to Cianwood. This is but a mere tiny feeling.

\---

They have two rooms, each one for four people, in the tiny inn Platina’s booked for them in advance (Crystal asked their trio to join in, but Pearl and Diamond were away with their double act business and Platina was conducting Pokemon research with her mother. "I hope you guys have lots of fun in our stead“, says Platina, calm voice in Crystal’s pokegear. "I have never actually been to a roadtrip before, but I would love to join you if you do it once again“), so Crystal has to share with Blue, Yellow and Emerald; two of them fall asleep in precisely ten minutes. Crystal remembers that Emerald has allergies and has to take pills with sedative effect while Yellow has been driving the whole day so she lets them both to rest. Blue stormed off to the city center just as they arrived, taking Gold and Red, which also meant taking Green, with her.

She closes her book and leaves her room; the door shuts with a quiet ‘click’. It’s something about 9pm; Crystal isn’t even remotely tired and the garden near the inn seemed particularly nice.

When she gets outside, she is met with warm wind and whispering leaves of the trees, surrounding her. Crystal feels her mouth widen in a lazy, content smile - she hasn’t been able to have a decent holiday in what, months now. Helping professor Elm with his studies, carrying out some research of her own, because of which he proudly declared her ‘the heiress to my laboratory’, was immensely interesting, but tiring to the same degree.

She spots Silver’s silhouette in the cool shade of the garden, sitting on the edge of a small fountain, which puts her out of her musing, and comes up to him. Silver doesn’t notice her for a while - he’s overly interested with the pattern of the fountain’s marble. She clears her throat.

"Hey. What are you doing here? Everyone’s in the city“.

Silver shrugs. Crystal knows him well enough to decipher it as ‘wasn’t really in the mood, also I’m not sure if I’m equipped to handle Blue and Gold and Red at their peak enthusiasm’. She nods, meaning ‘I’m actually same’. She knows she’s gotten the point across.

"She’s not as bad as she wants to seem, actually“.

Crystal raises eyebrow, waiting for the clarification.

"Blue, I mean.“

Crystal thinks of Blue watching Silver with pride and fondness when she thinks he doesn’t see, Blue making plans of their escape, Blue mothering Silver while they were kidnapped, Blue’s stubbornness, Blue, Blue, Blue. Flower perfume and narrow eyes in the shape of an almond; short pink nails and earrings of gym badges.

"Yes. Yes, I. Know. I know she is.“

She blushes as she stumbles upon pieces of sentences she can’t seem to properly form and watches Silver’s mouth curve in a tiny victorious smile.

"You fell so deep“, he tells her with a chuckle. It’s almost as if he’s about to tell her she’s got excellent taste or something.

"I know of no such things. She truly is admirable“, Crystal cracks her knuckles, "though some of her personal traits leave much to be desired“, intertwines her fingers, "she is an formidable opponent and a strong trainer“, fiddles with her earrings, "I don’t see why I shouldn’t see her as a heroine“.

She makes sure not to refer to Blue by her name, not that it makes her horrible spectacle any more believable. Silver’s expression turns even more amused: now that he hangs out with Gold all the time, he’s got way more attuned to people’s feelings and her shifting around was terribly obvious.

However, Silver says nothing and only hums.

Crystal leaves him determined to go to bed early.

The first things she sees upon opening the door to her room is Blue taking off her shoes and waving one of them at Crystal in a form of greeting. Crystal nods with a small smile, praying to all gods she knows that she isn’t too red.

Thankfully, Blue doesn’t notice a thing as she prepares to go to bed. It’s probably the most advisable course of action for them all, since they’ve planned to go explore the city tomorrow, thinks Crystal and sits on her bed to change.

She asks Blue whether they had fun in the city in hushed whisper. Blue grins, which leaves Crystal completely unaffected, no, for real, and tells her to ask Green tomorrow. Crystal finds herself wondering what kind of havoc they managed to wreck this time. Poor Green.

They exchange a few more phrases and soft giggles after that until Blue reaches to turn off the light. When Crystal lets her hair loose and places her elastics on the nightstand, Blue quietly whistles. Startled, Crystal looks at her only to find Blue beaming and giving her the thumbs up.

The light switch makes a quiet sound when Blue turns the lights off; they wish each other goodnight.

Crystal falls asleep with the thought that she’s never been more screwed in her entire life.

\--

Crystal is woken up with sunshine warming up her shoulders to the point she’s sweating. She sighs and reaches to peel herself out of blankets when she notices Blue looking at her. Her expression is mostly neutral, though she does blush a little when she notices that Crystal is awake (at least Crystal thinks she did). They are alone in the room; Yellow and Emerald must’ve been up for a while already.

“Good morning, sleepyhead”, Blue titles her head, the usual hint of amusement back in her gaze. Crystal startles.

“Oh, am I keeping everyone waiting? I’m so sorry! I’ll be ready in a minute!”

She doesn’t really manage to make a big fuss out of it: Blue’s laughter stops her.

“Nah, it’s okay, take your time. Green and Silver are still sleeping, you know how they are”.

Crystal chuckles; oh, does she. Once Gold livetweeted the process of waking Silver up early at Saturday morning, they needed to be off to Snowpoint city as early as possible. It took him something about half an hour, ost of Proteam Omega and a water sprayer. Silver appeared to be quite pissed off about this turn of events, which led to the ‘the most absorbing family drama in the whole Johto’, as labeled by Green.

Crystal asks Blue if she remembers this; she gets a series of giggles as a response and a hilarious story of Green not speaking to her for about a week because she accidentally woke him up with her phone call. Apparently it was pretty urgent and usually it is okay to bother Green with this kind of stuff, clarifies Blue in breathy voice from all the laughing, but that time Red wasn’t around with damage control. As a result, Blue had to do everything herself.

“It’s not even that I wasn’t capable of doing this alone. But why do something yourself when you can make someone else, honestly”.  
Crystal doesn’t really share this opinion; she says exactly that. Blue shrugs.

“Good to know I can make you do all the boring stuff with my stunning looks and captivating charm then. Am I right?”

Blue’s smile is every mischief in the world, Crystal is perfectly sure, and, therefore, should be made illegal at least in Johto.

She’s saved from answering by Emerald, who appears in the doorpost to tell them that Silver is finally awake and if they work together as a team, they might be able to wake Green up without any causalities. Blue and Crystal exchange looks; Blue smiles at her and Crystal finds herself blushing in a terribly vivid fashion at how genuine Blue looks.

Maybe this whole thing isn’t as hopeless as it might seem, muses Crystal as they walk the inn’s narrow corridors. Sometimes their shoulders brush.

\--  
Mission ‘wake Pokemon trainer Green up without employing Pokemon trainer Red’ ends in a semi-success. Green does wake up but he is so annoyed with every square millimeter of his surroundings that even Yellow seems a little bit amused with him. However even despite all of his grumpy looks he joins them in hitting the city center (though they do have to stop at every stand that sells something resembling coffee).

After about an hour of generally being loud and incidentally destructive they do decide to split up. Yellow disappears to take a look at fishing simulator (Crystal doesn’t miss the way Blue’s gaze turns a little softer at this. They have something special between them, something untouchable and tender, something alike Blue and Silver’s relationship, only not.), taking Emerald with them. Silver has been awestruck with the amount of Proteam Omega merch for the whole time they’ve been here and now he’s apparently set his mind to visiting some sort of themed arcade. Gold (of course) keeps him company, and Crystal grins at their joined little fingers when they blend in with the crowd.

This lefts her, Blue, Red and Green. Surprising no one, Green and Red find some excuse to go elsewhere; Crystal waves at them as a goodbye. Green mutters something in response while Red smiles, a bit apologetic but also not really.  
“Also surprising no one”, murmurs Crystal. Blue hears her and laughs, short and lively. Only now does Crystal realize who will keep her company for the rest of the day.

She can’t decide whether she’s mortified or glad. Blue is too much to be around, Crystal never forgets of her past and her glory and her titles, but, in the same time, Blue is the most outrageously alive person Crystal has ever encountered, with her shortcomings and kindness in outbursts and frighteningly light attitude despite all of her heavy memories.

Crystal also happens to have a crush size of a moon, which may or may not have tipped the balance in favour of the ‘glad’ option. Not that it matters, because she will possibly flip out later anyway.

Blue winks at her, which very effectively disrupts her thoughts, and declares that they have to do something fun right this second. Crystal nods in agreement; next thing she knows she’s in the nearby mall (who would even doubt) and Blue is assessing earrings in display.

Crystal blinks in confusion when Blue brings an earring up to her face.

“These ones are on me. You are supposed to give gifts to girls you like, right?”

Blue is looking her straight into the eyes. There’s softness in her gaze, warmth, Crystal would even go as far as describing this as admiration; her cheeks tingle excitedly at the thought.

Yet Blue is guarded, heavily so, ready to fall back, watching for Crystal’s reactions closely. Crystal is sure that it would take Blue milliseconds to wrap this up as a joke, to laugh, with this silver, light chuckle of hers and convince Crystal herself that it has never happened.

Crystal isn’t fine with this, not one bit. Blue deserves a chance to be honest and she’ll be damned if she won’t try her best to give it to her.

Crystal takes a breath.

“There’s one rule. You don’t steal them and you pay full price.”

Blue smiles, wide, heartfelt. Crystal’s heart is leaping in her chest.

“I can live with that.”

Blue’s wrist brushes Crystal’s cheek.


End file.
